Whip out a pair of scissors and a shuttle & copy this wall DIY

A woven wall hanging adds texture and warmth to your space with its special organic earthiness. Reminiscent of macramé, this unique fiber art DIY features two shades of yarn and an unexpected material: fluffy cotton fiber. The cotton deepens the piece’s organic flavor, while the addition of clean white to the overall visual design makes it particularly compatible with wood furniture and virtually any paint color.
Fiber art is an ideal choice if you’re stumped for original, wallet-friendly wall art ideas. It’s also easy to move to different spaces, versatile because it looks fabulous with traditional or contemporary furniture, and graphic, with bold color blocks and diagonal fringe details. This handcrafted treasure will instantly elevate your entryway, make a fantastic addition to a gallery wall, and even serve as a point of unexpected beauty above the mantel.
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Materials
- Wooden tabletop loom
- Spool of thin blue warp thread
- Skein of light blue yarn
- Skein of two-toned gray and black yarn
- Several feet of fluffy cotton or faux cotton fiber
- Scissors
- Shuttle
- Yarn comb
- Sewing needle with a large eye
- Thin wooden dowel
DIY Everywhere
Instructions
1. Place your lap loom on the work surface. Before you can weave, you need to warp the loom, where you create high-tension threads to weave the yarn through.
2. To do this, place the warp thread into the notches on either side of the loom, starting at the lowest notch on the loom’s right side.
3. Knot the thread to the lower right corner of the loom, so it’s securely attached.
4. Bring the thread over and across the loom to the left side, and put it through that notch.
5. Continue wrapping the thread around the loom notches, going from side to side, until you’ve strung the yarn through the loom’s two sides of 27 notches.
6. Bring the thread around the last notch, and wrap it around the notch, over and under it.
7. Tie two knots with the thread, so it’s secured to the loom at that point. Trim any excess yarn with the scissors.
8. Create the weft, where you weave yarn vertically through the tightly tied, horizontally oriented warp thread.
9. Orient the loom vertically on the work surface.
10. Wrap the light blue yarn around the shuttle, and tie its end in a knot around the bottom left vertically oriented piece of warp thread, right above the bar that’s situated above the warp thread notches.
11. Tie the yarn in a knot around the end of the loom on the bottom left, where the warp thread is.
12. Move the shuttle through from left to right and back again six times. The yarn will be woven in an alternating “under-and-over” pattern through the vertical warp thread.
13. Use the yarn comb to push the yarn down after you bring the shuttle through each time, so it’s as close to the horizontal loom bar as possible. When you’re finished, the end of the yarn will be situated on the left side of the loom.
14. Knot the yarn, and put the loom aside.
15. Cut a length of yarn that’s about 24 inches long, and fold it at its middle point. Place it on the work surface. It will be one double-layered length of yarn.
16. Repeat step 15, 26 more times, and divide the doubled-up yarn strings into piles of 3-5 strings.
17. Bring the loom back, and on the left side of it above the weft rows, take a piece of yarn and place it around the bottom left piece of warp thread.
18. Bring the two hanging yarn ends together and tie a knot, so both yarn fringe ends are hanging down vertically.
19. Repeat step 18 all the way across on each of the remaining warp threads. Our loom has 27.
20. Comb the yarn tails hanging over the weft rows, so they're flat and untangled.
21. Repeat step 11, and as you weave from right to left, don’t weave the yarn through the first two vertical weft threads on the right; start at the third one.
22. Comb the yarn, but continue to go from left to right, and start a new line one warp thread later on the right as you weave each successive row.
23. Comb the yarn as you weave each row.
24. When you’ve finished creating the diagonal line in the piece — the right side will be its lowest point and its left side, the highest — cut the yarn and knot it.
25. Repeat steps 15-20, but these knotted yarn pieces’ ends will form a diagonal line design that echoes the pattern you just wove.
26. Comb the yarn.
27. Get the skein of two-tone yarn — ours is gray and black — cut some yarn, and wind it from end to end on the shuttle.
28. Knot the end of the yarn to the warp thread that's positioned on the far right of the loom.
29. Use the shuttle to weave this yarn under and above the warp thread that is unused, to the right of the light blue woven yarn. Weave right to left, then left to right, and fill up the blank space.
30. Weave with this yarn until you’ve created a triangle shape that mirrors the opposing light blue yarn triangle. As you begin to weave with the two-toned yarn, you’ll need to move each of the light blue knotted fringe pieces above where you’re weaving, and then slide them back down as you go.
Note: The row of light blue will separate the light blue and gray/black triangles, but a rectangle is formed when the light blue and gray/black yarn triangles are viewed together.
31. Comb the yarn.
32. Cut the woven two-toned yarn from the shuttle, knot the end of it on the warp thread at the far left end of the loom, and trim it with the scissors.
33. Put the loom aside.
34. Take a 3-feet length of the white fluffy cotton fiber, and wrap it around the shuttle several times.
35. Cut it from the larger piece of fiber with the scissors.
36. Bring the shuttle and cotton through the warp thread from left to right, and release the cotton from the shuttle. Weave the rest of it by hand from right to left, in an over-and-under pattern through the warp thread.
37. Comb the cotton fiber downward, and tuck it into the fiber behind the loom, since it’s too bulky to knot as you did before with the yarn.
38. Take another length of cotton fiber, and weave it from right to left and through the warp thread by hand without using the shuttle. Tuck the end of the fiber on the left side behind the loom again, and comb the yarn.
39. Continue weaving the cotton with your fingers from right to left, but after creating three full horizontal rows of cotton, just weave it through 17 of the 27 warp threads. Do this twice, so you have two rows of the cotton that are woven like this.
40. Repeat step 39, but weave the cotton through only 14 of the warp threads, then do a row where you weave the cotton through only 12 of the warp threads.
41. Cut the excess cotton on the right side of the loom with the scissors, and tuck the end into the cotton, so it goes through the front to the back of the piece.
42. Comb the cotton down.
43. Starting at the middle point of the warp thread where the cotton ends —about 12 or 13 warp threads in from the left — knot the blue yarn to the warp thread, and put it on the shuttle.
44. Weave it through the warp thread, starting from right to left, then left to right, and so on.
45. Continue weaving with this yarn until the triangular form that the light blue yarn will fill is complete.
46. Cut the end of the blue yarn with the scissors, and knot it so it’s securely attached to the warp thread on the far left.
47. Now knot a length of the gray and black yarn onto the piece of warp thread on the far left.
48. Wrap the yarn around the shuttle, and weave it under and over the warp yarn four times.
49. Comb the yarn as you go, cut the end, and knot it to the warp thread on the far left.
50. Turn the loom over, and tuck each of the loose yarn and fiber ends into the woven piece.
51. Take the sewing needle and put the top third of it diagonally through the yarn matching the first loose end that will be integrated into the larger patch of woven yarn.
52. Bring the loose yarn or fiber end through the eye of the needle and pull the needle all the way through, so the end is integrated into the matching yarn.
53. Trim the small remaining bit of excess yarn end that remains visible with the scissors.
54. Repeat steps 50-53 for the loose yarn and fiber ends that remain.
55. Turn the loom over again, so the front is facing up.
56. Gently push the diagonal hanging fringe aside.
57. Next, push the vertical hanging bottom row of fringe aside.
58. Release the warp thread loops from the bottom of the loom, and cut the loops so the thread ends are hanging.
59. Knot each pair, so the bottom end of the piece doesn’t unravel.
60. Trim the excess warp thread ends with the scissors, so the ends are very short.
61. Lower the yarn fringe. The small knotted warp thread ends will be concealed.
62. Release the looped warp thread at the top of the loom by turning the knob on the upper left side of the loom.
63. Cut the loops from the piece of knotted warp thread at the top right section of the woven piece with the scissors.
64. Slide the dowel through the loops while making sure they’re evenly spaced. Use the comb to gently consolidate the rows of yarn that form the tops section of the piece.
65. Flip the piece over, so the trimmed warp thread end next to the loops is positioned to the left of the loops.
66. Insert the needle through a couple woven rows of the gray and black yarn at the top of the piece, and bring the loose warp thread end through the needle’s eye.
67. Pull the end of the warp thread through the woven yarn so it’s hidden and absorbed into the piece.
68. Repeat steps 66-67.
69. Trim the remaining small end with the scissors.
70. Cut about 2 feet of light blue yarn from the spool, and double it up.
71. Tie the looped end in a knot around the right side of the dowel, and tie the two loose ends into a knot around the left side of the dowel.
72. Trim the excess blue yarn ends from the knot on the left with the scissors. This will be what you will use to hang the piece.
73. Comb and straighten the row of diagonal hanging light blue yarn fringe pieces, lift them up, and lay them down on the piece above where the fringe is knotted. The lower straight horizontal line of knotted fringe will be exposed.
74. Straighten this fringe out, and comb it.
75. Move the shuttle down over the hanging yarn fringe ends, starting right underneath the knots. Bring the shuttle about halfway down the fringe, flatten the bottom fringe section, and use it as a guide to create a straight line.
76. Trim the ends under the bottom of the shuttle with the scissors, so they end at that point, and they’re uniform in length.
77. Comb those ends.
78. Bring down the diagonal fringe again and comb it.
79. Position the shuttle so it mimics the diagonal angle where the upper yarn fringe is knotted.
80. Trim the hanging yarn that’s below the bottom of the shuttle in a diagonal line. The right portion of the fringe should overlap the lower fringe by about 1” or so.
81. Hang this 100% handcrafted yet sophisticated fiber art anywhere, and it is sure to get noticed for all the right reasons.
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